The present invention relates to electronic mail application systems in general and more particularly to an electronic mail (“e-mail”) application for indicating the status of the sender of an electronic mail message in a single, integrated incoming message status window or in-box.
E-mail software client applications are in widespread use for sending and receiving e-mail messages, in particular, on the Internet. One limitation, however, of such e-mail applications is that they are not designed for facilitating instantaneous two-way communication or real-time messaging with another computer connected, for example, to the Internet. Instead, prior e-mail applications only provide a list of new messages received in an in-box for review by the client application. There is no mechanism built into prior e-mail applications for determining or tracking the on-line status of any of the senders of the new messages or the real-time availability of the senders for entering real-time messaging or communications with the user. Further, prior e-mail applications do not include a means for determining the membership of the senders of new messages in any instant messaging systems or related standards, whether proprietary or non-proprietary. The typical means that a user of an e-mail client application has for communicating with the sender involves a significant lag time due to the need for a reply e-mail message to be sent using standard e-mail protocols such as those used on the Internet, and the delay that arises from waiting for the recipient of the reply e-mail to check the recipient's e-mail server using the recipient's e-mail application.
Instant messaging systems exist for providing real-time communication between users operating different computers connected over, for example, the Internet. These instant messaging systems provide real-time communication not possible with dedicated e-mail applications. Examples of currently-available instant messaging systems include America On-Line's instant messaging system and the NETCLUBS system offered by Valent Software. Although instant messaging systems permit real-time communication, existing systems must be operated by the user from a dedicated application or dedicated window within another application, which must be separately launched or accessed in order to determine those other users that are members of the instant messaging system and/or that are available for real-time interactive communication such as by so-called “chat” communication or otherwise. Also, other users may be members of different instant messaging systems, in which case the user will need to check two or more instant messaging applications to determine whether other users are available for chatting. Because a user will typically only check a limited number of status windows such as, for example, the in-box of the user's preferred e-mail application, the user may miss or not be aware that other users are available for real-time messaging.
It would be desirable for a user to be able to quickly and conveniently determine in a single status window, such as an in-box, the availability of all other users which have electronically contacted the user, for example, by sending an e-mail, and that are currently available for real-time messaging. Under existing approaches, a user must learn two or more different applications with varying user interfaces in order to track the on-line messaging status of other users. Another limitation of existing approaches is that a user often may not be able to recognize that a particular sender of an e-mail message is also a member of an instant messaging system to which the user also belongs. This can occur, for example, because the sender of an e-mail message may use a different name or alias for interacting on an instant messaging system. Instead of using multiple applications to manage communications with other users, it would be desirable to use a single application by which a user could quickly and conveniently reply to a sender of an e-mail using standard e-mail protocols or entering into a real-time messaging session with the sender.
Accordingly, there is a need for an electronic mail application that integrates in a single interface window the updating of status information regarding senders of e-mail messages received by the user and that displays the status for each sender of an incoming message based on the current availability of the sender for real-time messaging.